


Light (Can't Lift His Headache Head)

by tsohg



Category: Bandom, Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Angst, Anorexia, Character Death, Eating Disorders, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Sad, Suicide, author is sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:18:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsohg/pseuds/tsohg
Summary: He wants nothing more than to be light.





	

He wants nothing more than to be light.

Josh sees these people, these people who are so _big,_ and he wonders how they can justify to themselves taking up so much space.

He wonders what it's like to be okay with being so heavy.

-

To say he stopped eating would be inaccurate. He still eats.

He's just more careful now.

He measures everything out, precisely, scours packaging for calorie counts and grams of fat.

Josh doesn't need any more _fat._ Fat is heavy.

Zero is a pristine number, an embodiment of empty; zero is what he aims for.

(He's not obsessive, either, just because he won't eat anything if there's no way to tell exactly what's in it. He's cautious. He's rigorous. He's accurate.)

-

Vain, vain, vain, Tyler tells him. He's being vain.

Tyler jokes about the time he spends in front of the mirror (and it is okay, because it's just a joke, Tyler is just joking, Josh tells himself every time, and never believes it).

Tyler smiles as he tells him he must be letting the fame get to his head. He'd never cared about how he looked before.

And Josh nods, laughs over a tongue that tastes like metal, says, _yeah, that must be it._

-

Josh feels like he is sinking, sinking, sinking, pulled into the pit of his own stomach. He is hollowing himself out in the least metaphorical of ways.

Josh doesn't think it'd be enough just to dissipate completely.

The phrase "out with a bang" comes to mind a lot lately.

-

Josh still feels so _weighty,_ still, always, his head and his limbs and his bones and god, can someone remind him why he doesn't drink?

(It's not like he'd do it anymore, anyway. It's not like he has the calories to spare.)

-

He calculates the pounds he needs to lose to hit underweight on the stupid, insignificant (crucial, biblical) BMI scale.

When he reaches that, he tries for the 17.5 needed for an Anorexia nervosa diagnosis.

When he reaches that, he tries for 15. There is always something to strive for.

He is searching for some purpose in nothingness, like he can rot himself whole again and his head is always spinning and he's not sure if he wants that to stop, or if he wants everything to stop altogether.

-

Sometimes, he feels like this human tragedy (pathetic, pathetic, stop feeling sorry for yourself), this living disappearing act.

It's really all he's good at, despite what Tyler and Mark and Debby and Jenna and his family have deceived themselves into believing. He's not kind, he's not funny, he's not pleasant, he's not talented.

But at least he's got a mastery of this.

At least he's getting close to feeling _light._

The phrase "out with a bang" comes to mind a lot lately.

-

He is careful, so careful, so in control, for the first time in his life.

His bony, blued fingers, his glass-pane hipbones are the proof.

His sister tells him he's being obsessive.

His brother tells him he's acting like a girl.

Tyler tells him he looks sick, maybe he's pushing himself too hard, maybe they should cancel some shows and take some time off and _are you taking care of yourself?_ and _maybe you need to get help._

Josh wants to yell, wants to scream red-rage words at them because he is helping _himself_ and they can't see it, why can't they see it?

Instead, he says he's fine, and yeah, he'll think about taking a break.

-

If he can balance it all right, maybe he can convince them nothing is wrong.

And, really, he thinks, nothing _is_ wrong.

He's just so self-restrained and no one is used to that, not from him. After all, he used to be so undisciplined, so self-indulgent.

It must be so strange for them, seeing him so neat and so organized and so pristine.

That's the discrepancy. That's the only thing that's odd.

-

When Josh hits the 15 he sought, he isn't sure what to do with himself.

He could lower the number, sure, but he is already always the thinnest person in the room. He already draws attention and concern and comment after comment after comment on videos and Instagram photos and he's growing sick of it.

He's growing sick of a lot of things, of feeling like his head is underwater, of sleeping 12 hours and waking still exhausted, of the way his hands shake like railways, of fucking up drum-beats and embarrassing himself.

He really is embarrassing. He should be ashamed of himself, and he is, god, he is, he is, but even that isn't enough.

The phrase "out with a bang" comes to mind a lot lately.

-

A razor and a handful of pills and a noose and a handgun all have the same effect, so long as he can finish what he starts.

(That's another thing Josh isn't so good at, like phone calls and algebra and poetry and functioning as a human being. He thinks, though, he'll be able to go through with this one.)

He picks the razor, and rents a hotel room, because he doesn't want his parents or his siblings or Tyler to find him.

He's a shitty person, he knows that, but he's still got his sense of guilt.

He's inconvenienced them enough by being the way that he is.

He's inconvenienced them enough by being alive.

-

The veins in his wrists are cracked marble, a fractal pattern, an unmined quarry.

It's so easy to interrupt the pretty soft blue, to dichotomize it into melting strawberry red.

It's so simple, almost painless, a sting that numbs when his vision starts to go porcelain-statue white and he is so relieved, so relieved that this is over, that there is nothing left to strive for, that he is evidently good enough at self-destruction.

And finally, finally, finally, he feels _light._


End file.
